This comprehensive series
aircraft manual shows you how to assemble, improve, detail, paint,
prepare and apply decals and apply basic weathering. There are
some challenging void issues and the manual shows you how to fill and
contour these voids using plastic strips and super glue. The thickness
of the kit’s plastic is thin for a 1/32 scale kit and the manual shows
you how to add interior laminations of plastic sheet and strip to
reinforce the main wing, the fuselage and the engine booms so that the
seams will not crack due to flexing. The
manual shows you how to add weight to the engines and the nose area to
properly balance the model. The cockpit was enhanced with the Eduard
P-38 photoetch set and their pre-painted seat belts and the manual shows
you how to prepare, bend and reinforce the photoetch parts. The kit
represents a P-38 L-5-LO, however the model was back dated to a P-38J,
which required omitting the rocket pylons and filling in the wing
lights. This kit has two well detailed engines and the manual
demonstrates how to remove and detail panels so that areas of each
engine can be displayed.The
kit’s guns have a slight misalignment between the part halves so they
were replaced with plastic rod and the propellers were replaced with a
set from a Revell kit as they are more accurate in appearance and shape.
The separate control surfaces and flaps also need some modifications and
tweaking to achieve a better fit. The kit was painted with enamels and
lacquers and minimal weathering was achieved with drybrushing techniques
and a badger 200 detail airbrush